In plea deal, teen gets 22 years for shootings

Friday

Sep 28, 2012 at 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — When he was 11, Tevin Williams followed another boy, 11, and stabbed him in the head with a sharpened wooden stick, leaving the child with a brain stem injury, Assistant District Attorney Leah Canton told a judge Thursday in Orange County Court. That led to a stint in juvenile detention for second-degree assault.

Heather Yakin

GOSHEN — When he was 11, Tevin Williams followed another boy, 11, and stabbed him in the head with a sharpened wooden stick, leaving the child with a brain stem injury, Assistant District Attorney Leah Canton told a judge Thursday in Orange County Court. That led to a stint in juvenile detention for second-degree assault.

In 2009, when he was 13, Williams took a metal baseball bat and hit a 7-year-old in the head, Canton said. The child was found bleeding on the ground. Williams spent more time in juvenile lockup for attempted assault.

Williams was in Orange County Court on Thursday for the crimes that came next: two shootings last fall, one when he was still 15 and the other after he turned 16.

Williams pleaded guilty to first-degree assault for each of the crimes, one count as a juvenile offender and one count as an adult. Prosecutors say Williams is a Bloods gang member who goes by "Trigga Trey."

Williams stood silently, betraying no reaction, as Canton described the shootings and the damage.

On Sept. 3, 2011, Williams went to a party near Silver Lake-Scotchtown Road and Fifth Street in the Town of Wallkill. He argued with a man there, Canton said, and then he allegedly pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot the man once in the torso.

"The defendant tried to fire more than one shot; however, the gun jammed," Canton said. The victim needed surgery and lost his spleen.

On Nov. 12, Williams went to a party at a motel on the Route 211 strip. In the parking lot, he saw an approaching car and decided the occupants were after him. He started running and shooting across the crowded lot, Canton said. Two bullets went into a car where a pair of women were sitting. The passenger ducked; the 19-year-old driver was hit in the eye.

The victim needed surgery to remove the bullet from her brain and lost her eye. Canton said the woman has anger and self-consciousness about her injury.

Violent acts, Canton said, "are nothing more than trophies for this defendant."

Rachel Traumer, standing in for Williams' lawyer, Ben Greenwald, asked Judge Nicholas De Rosa to go along with the negotiated plea deal: 22 years in prison with five years of post-release supervision by parole for the November shooting and a concurrent 3﻿1/2 to 10 years for the September shooting. That sentence was granted.

"Every once in a while, as a judge," De Rosa told Williams, "you run into somebody who has a complete inability to live with the rest of us. You are one."